HAVE YOU EVER struggled to get through to your staff? Tried selling something and the prospect just didn’t get it? Maybe you’ve been frustrated by your boss or colleagues, who didn’t seem to hear what you were saying. Or you’ve been stuck in a negotiation where the other side seemed to be on a completely different wavelength. Perhaps you’ve been creatively blocked, unable to come up with any ideas.
The good news is, at the most basic level, the quickest solution to all these situations is the same thing. In a negotiation with a colleague, in selling to a prospect, in giving feedback to a team member, in coaching someone, in managing upwards or downwards, and in so many other situations, the solution is the same: the effective use of questions.
In every case, you’re trying to influence someone else’s actions or behaviour. You’re trying to influence them to make a change; a change that could be good for them, as well as for the company or even you. In order to do that, it is necessary to get the other person thinking; they need to engage their minds. By far, the most straightforward way of engaging their minds is to ask them the right questions — in the right way.
Of course, there are plenty of books that talk about influence. Cialdini’s Influence: the psychology of persuasion speaks directly to this topic. Virtually every marketing book and every sales book is about how to influence your customers or prospective customers. Most management books and leadership books are about how to influence your teams. My management book, Thirty essentials: management, is all about how to get the best out of your team, and focuses on influencing how your team operates.
However, none of these books focuses on the skill or habit of asking questions. I believe this is one of the most valuable skills in business and is certainly one of the most effective ways of influencing people.
“ The skill or habit of asking questions is among the most valuable skills in business and is certainly one of the most effective ways of influencing people. „
For the last ten years, I’ve worked as a professional business coach and executive coach. I’ve conducted approximately 10,000 hours of coaching, trained countless other coaches, been consistently ranked among the top coaches in the world and, in 2018 and 2020, I was recognised by ActionCOACH, the world’s leading coaching organisation, as Executive Coach of the Year globally. It is that experience that’s taught me both the value of questioning and the skill of questioning. It is also the experience that underpins most of what this book will explore.
It is the skill and habit of asking questions that will be the focus of this book. Importantly, this book will focus on not just the value of asking questions, but also how to ask effective questions. It will introduce you to the question funnel, which is the overarching framework that guides the different types of questions you might use as well as the sequence in which you can use them to greatest effect. This book will discuss the questions that are likely to be effective in different situations, how to ask them to have the greatest impact, and how anyone in business can develop questioning into a real skill and habit.
The primary aim of this book is to help readers improve the impact of their communication. More specifically, how to employ the skill of questioning to influence those with whom they communicate.
The story of John
To help illustrate the wide range of business situations in which this book is applicable, I’m going to start with a story. It will follow a day in the life of business manager John; a day during which he will interact with various other people. Although their roles — and relationship with John — all vary, this book will illustrate that these interactions could all have been dealt with most effectively by using the same technique.
However, in the first telling of the story that technique will be absent, leading to poor outcomes. John’s story will be familiar in offices all around the world, and it is a perfect example of how this book can provide a solution to common management problems.
John is 45 and from Melbourne. He manages a small sales team for a large software company that sells software to other companies. Deals typically cost in the range of $10,000 — $15,000. John has worked for the company for eight years, having started as a sales executive. He was promoted after four years, and while he is passionate about Australian rules football, he has gradually become a lot less enthusiastic about his work.
After arriving at the office on another miserable winter’s day, John’s first meeting for the morning is with his boss, Sarah. She has been in Australia a little over a year, having arrived from the London headquarters, but she hasn’t yet built strong relationships with the team. Most of her staff view her as an overly ambitious and somewhat detached upstart.
At the start of John’s meeting with her, Sarah demands that John improve the performance of his sales team and make some quick sales. She doesn’t seem to care that two of John’s team have been away sick, one of the company’s key customers has just gone bankrupt, and the delivery team is three months behind.
John keeps telling Sarah that she’s asking the impossible. He tries to explain these problems clearly, but to no avail. Sarah just wants sales and wants them quickly. John can feel Sarah’s frustration as he walks out of her office and catches sight of her slamming her folder on the desk. He’s just as frustrated — she just doesn’t get it.
On his way back to his own office, John talks to Harry, the head of delivery. When he tells Harry that they’re going to need to catch up and be ready for more orders, he’s met with an almost outright refusal. Harry talks briefly about the challenges his team are facing but, to be honest, he doesn’t seem that interested in John’s situation. It appears that Harry doesn’t get it either.
Coincidentally, Harry and John had been at school together and, ever since Harry took John’s spot in the football team, John’s avoided building a positive relationship with Harry. This morning, Harry makes it very clear that he’s busy and his mind is elsewhere, so John returns to his own office, ready to get his team revved up.
Unfortunately, one of John’s sales executives has just left the business to go to a competitor, leaving a depleted team of just three others. The remaining team gathers around the meeting table and, before even starting his briefing, John glances at them and feels very little inspiration. They’re behind budget, they’re under pressure, and he’s just not convinced that they have what it takes. He’s told them repeatedly that they need to work harder and convince their prospects of the quality of their products. They just don’t seem to respond.
He’s lost track of how many times he’s told Mary, one of the team, to present using the correct company documents and, as for Bob, John’s stopped telling him to use the correct sales process as he just never seems to pick up on it. In fact, he wonders if Bob and Mary are colluding with each other to make his life difficult — they too just don’t seem to get it!
Sure enough, as soon as he starts his briefing, he immediately hears the usual lines from them. ‘The product isn’t good enough.’ ‘The prospect just doesn’t get it.’ ‘You don’t listen when we tell you how difficult it is,’ and so on. It is going to be a long day.
Later that afternoon, John is meeting with Alex, the CIO of a major bank. He was introduced by a mutual acquaintance, and although Alex is probably twenty years older than John, their kids attend the same school, so the conversation is quite friendly. The bank would be a fantastic customer to win and John is convinced their product is ideal for the bank. It’s certainly a much better product than what they’re currently using.
In the course of the conversation, John uses all of his experience to explain this very fact. He outlines the qualities of the product, its unique capabilities and lists several examples of companies using it successfully. So he’s rather taken aback when, at the end of the meeting, Alex is polite but has no interest in further meetings. How is it that he doesn’t get it?
When sitting at home that night, John tries to forget his day at the office and focus entirely on his family. He fails to notice that the dynamic at home bears a striking resemblance to that at the office. Jane, his 14-year-old daughter, hasn’t tidied her room even though John told her to. Billy, his 15-year-old son, refuses to work on his school assignment no matter how many times John reminds him, and Barbara, his wife of 18 years, seems more remote than ever. Buried in her phone, she hardly engages in conversation with him. In the end, he decides to just go to bed early.
In the course of that story, there are more than enough pain points. John’s stressed by Sarah. Sarah’s frustrated by John. John’s frustrated with Harry and Harry just wants to avoid the subject. John’s almost given up trying with Bob and Mary, and they seem to be on the verge of giving up altogether. Alex, a potentially excellent customer, isn’t picking up on any of the great things that John tells him. In every case, it seems that the other person just doesn’t get it.
But let’s be honest, none of these situations is unusual. Does any part of this story sound familiar? Have you ever struggled with similar frustrations? Would you be surprised to know that the solution is the same for all of them? Asking the right questions in the right way could have solved all of John’s challenges and so many more.
This book will focus on business situations, but the habits and skills in it are equally valuable as a parent, spouse or friend as they are as a manager or salesperson. Whether you’re negotiating with a colleague, selling to a prospect, giving feedback to a team member, coaching someone, managing up or down, the most effective technique to use is the same.
That technique is the effective use of questions. And it is the technique of asking effective questions in the most effective manner that is the focus of this book. In every case, you’re trying to influence someone else’s actions or their behaviour. To do that, it’s a necessary pre-condition that you engage their minds. And by far, the most straightforward way of engaging their minds is to ask them questions.
Before going further, I should clarify one crucial point. Questioning is often used to assist in discovery and exploration. It is used to prompt innovation and creativity. It is quite natural for people to ask questions when trying to make discoveries or come up with new ideas. In the context of business innovation, in particular the development of more innovative and valuable core assets in a business, my book Thirty essentials: strategy includes a range of questions to prompt new insights and ideas. In those situations, questions are genuinely used to discover new things.
In this book, on the other hand, I am focused on the use of questions as a means of improving communication. And yes, in many instances, that communication will include an attempt to influence people. Sometimes, when asking questions, you will already know the answer but use questions as a way to prompt someone else to think about the issue at hand.
For some readers, this may sound quite close to manipulation. However, in virtually every case, you’re trying to help someone. When giving feedback to a team member, you’re trying to help them improve. In a sales situation, you’re trying to help a prospect understand how their situation will improve as a result of buying from you.
These changes you believe they should make (for example, a prospect to buy from you when they haven’t before, or a team member to adjust the way they work to perform better) are good for them (as well as perhaps for you or your business). You’re trying to help them recognise an opportunity. In many cases, you’re helping them to understand the reality of their current situation first, and then helping them to see a better alternative. In all cases, the change should be good for them. Yes, you are trying to influence them, but you’re trying to influence them to do something that’s good for them.
Of course, in business situations, many of these changes that you’re trying to bring about will also be good for the company as a whole, or even for you personally as a manager or a salesperson. Sometimes, it may even be the case that the benefit to the company is the primary reason to seek the change. However, even in these situations, the success of the company is usually of benefit to its employees and customers. Furthermore, by asking questions, you are helping the other person to find the answers. If you ask effective questions, in an effective order as guided by the question funnel, then the answers should simply reflect the reality of the situation and lead to a usually desirable, or at least necessary, change for everyone involved.
Sometimes, you won’t know the specific answer but still wish for that other person to think about what the answer might be. In some cases, you will ask questions in part to uncover new things and partly to get the other person thinking about the subject. In all cases, effective communication is necessary, and questions are the most effective means to ensure that it is achieved. The question funnel explained throughout this book will guide you to ask such effective questions and to ask them in the most effective sequence and manner.
Sounds simple, right? If effective communication were so simple, more people would be doing it — and doing it well. There would be fewer exasperated managers sighing, ‘I just can’t get my team to work properly.’ Fewer salespeople complaining that ‘the prospect just doesn’t get it.’ There would be fewer exasperated parents saying, ‘the kids aren’t doing what I told them to do.’ And so on.
In the end, the primary aim of The question code is to help you successfully communicate by developing a strong and effective questioning habit. I use the word habit intentionally — the best questioners have developed the skill of effective questioning to the point that it is habit, and I believe that this is necessary.
“ The best questioners have developed the skill to the point that it is a habit — I believe that this is necessary. „
As you’ll see, mastering this skill requires more than just implementing a superficial change and learning a few good questions to use. Mastering effective questioning also requires a shift in your mindset. It requires developing a level of comfort with discomfort, and it requires being at ease with uncertainty. Often, communication such as this requires real courage — courage to occasionally ask hard questions to which you’d rather not know the answer.
There are many different types of questions that can be asked. In so many situations, asking the right question is the solution. In this sense, questioning is the silver bullet to bad communication. Asking questions in the right manner and the right order makes the solution truly effective. The combination of the correct question(s), in the correct manner, and in the correct sequence, is what the question funnel will enable for you. However, to master it requires the right levels of practice, knowledge, skill and foundation that must be learned. The question code will address these elements in separate chapters.
Chapter 1 explores the various reasons why most people are not effective questioners. Some of the reasons relate to individual psychology, and some are created by the environment in which we live. This foundation is important because recognising and understanding the underlying challenges to effective questioning is a key starting point to overcoming them.
Chapter 1 also explores why effective questioning works and why developing it as a skill is so valuable. This understanding is a useful foundation for mastering effective questioning. Recognising how questioning engages peoples’ minds, triggers effective communication and plays to the vagaries of peoples’ egos will motivate you to improve your questioning skill.
Chapter 2 focuses on the simpler aspect of asking a good question. What constitutes a good question, how to ask a good question, and how to come up with better questions will all be covered in this chapter. It will also introduce the concept of the question funnel, which provides an overarching framework for how to use different types of questions in different situations.
Then Chapter 3 discusses the common traits of effective questioners. These traits might help you to identify more foundational changes that will be required to truly master the skill of questioning, including the changes in your mindset that will enable you to achieve this mastery.
Chapter 4 explains some tactics that you can use to turn your newly learned questioning skills into a real habit. Based on the science of forming habits, these tactics will explore what you can do intentionally and proactively to ensure that your questioning skill becomes a reliable habit.
In addition, the Appendix provides some specific questions to use in different situations. These are questions that have been tried and tested to work in sales, management and innovation, and in simply building better relationships. These lists are of course not exhaustive; no such list could be. They are included simply to get you started.
As an ActionCOACH franchisee, I was taught that the definition of communication is ‘the response you get’. I always liked that definition as it placed responsibility on the person communicating and brought focus to the fact that, unless they achieved the outcome or response that they desired, then that person wasn’t communicating effectively. So, take ownership of your communication.
“ Take ownership of your communication. „
If you want to get a specific message across or achieve a particular outcome with another person, who is in the best position to make that happen? Of course, it is you. It is entirely up to you whether or not you achieve that. It is up to your skill and your ability to help the other person reach the point that you’re seeking. Of course, in the end, achieving that outcome and response requires the person with whom you’re communicating to think about what you’re saying. And by far, the best way to ensure they are doing that is to ask the right questions in the right way.
This book is for anyone who would like people to respond to their communication in the way that they intended.